Hey, just wanted to say I know I missed a sea zone line south of Gibraltar. Oops!

That's one sweet map.. I assume that you made it..? How'd you go about doing it?

Hey, thanks! I really wanted a map that was highly playable yet still beautiful, and this one needed some help in both departments with its cramped size and garish colorations.

I use Adobe Photoshop CS. I started with a scan of the map, and a hi-res photomosaic of the earth (without clouds) from NASA. Then came the really hard part - morphing the continents to match the quite relative shapes and sizes as they appear on the AA map. Then sucked the borders off the original map to drop in (I had to draw in the sea by hand, as well as most of the British territories as the border color was so close to their territory colors.

After some experimenting, I decided against territory colors and moved the national colors to the IPC markers. Seems like most people who would play on this map already are pretty experienced at the game, and would be able to handle that shift. It saves the beauty of the satellite photography, without sacrificing play. (Those IPC icons are almost a 1/2 inch across on the printout, anyway)

Then added in all the text and iconography, and landed with what you see. Whole process probably took around two days of work once I got going on it.

We're ordering an extra set of units and two of infantry from Hasbro, so people can use as many miniatures as they want rather than the chits. When all that arrives, I'll try and post a pic of the whole setup in action...

Original thread: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/784732#784732

Neat stuff, thanks for answering..

I think it looks awesome.. I went to the thread you listed and checked some of the responses, also looked up the maps that were recommended in the thread, and unless I'm missing something, yours seems to be superior.. Very nice indeed.

Out of curiosity, how big is the map when its printed out?

Ultimately, I'm more of a fan of 'nice maps' than I am of Risk, but, what can do you do?

Thanks again. You know it is for Axis and Allies, not Risk, right?

Actually, I should make one for Risk. Hmm... Dang. Another project to do. The map is printed at 57"x34"

Yes! A&A! That's what I meant.

Now, what you need are some custom models and what-not to really make it shine.

Great looking map. The lands are clearly out of proportion, but hey, it shall help with the stacking of pieces in the heavy combat zones. It always bugged me that the Brazil part of the map is done wrong (in the original too). Argentina is getting Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and 2 southern states of Brazil.

Yeah the proportions are straight from the original game map ( http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/42540) - I didn't change those around at all. Everything has obviously ben proportioned in terms of game importance rather than actual relative size. One only need to look at Britain and Greenland...

Oh, and Finland, Norway and Sweden have become Finway on my map too - that should be the real bane to purists!

Has Brazilian territory changed at all since WW2, or is the original just flat-out wrong?

On the other hand, the names are clearly regional rather than political.

The Original map of Brazil in A&A is flat wrong...

I really like this map, how would I be able to get my hands on a copy?

I wonder why more people don't swim back and forth between Africa and South America? It must be only ten miles!